Morten Lund

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Morten Lund, (born April 3, 1972) is an entrepreneur from Copenhagen, Denmark. Along with Soren Kenner, Lund is founder and managing partner of LundKenner, a venture capital firm focusing on technology ventures.^{[citation needed]}

Archangel investor, startup ideologist and visionary, Danish serial entrepreneur Morten Lund has founded or co-invested in more than 40 high-tech start ups in the last decade, most famously Skype, the VoIP star snapped up by eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. At 36 years of age he is one of the most active seed investors in Europe, with an eye for turning existing business models and distribution methods on their head. His portfolio features over 80 companies spanning the Internet, telecoms, health and alternative energy.^[1]

1 WILD
2 About Lund
3 Investment style
4 Recent ventures
5 Recent exits
6 References
7 External links

[edit] WILD

Lund has established a category of investments in his portfolio entitled WILD – Worldwide Investments and Involvement in Life Development - through which he is investing in water purification, marine energy systems, landmine detection and hunger and obesity. Lund is a special member of Clinton’s Global Initiative, a professor at Reykjavik University and frequent speaker at international conferences. With more than 40,000 monthly visitors his blog has more readers than the local newspaper. ^[2]

[edit] About Lund

Venture capitalist Tim Draper, the investor behind [Hotmail], calls him “brilliant,” and fellow VC Bill Tai describes him as “a cross between Wile E. Coyote and Yosemite Sam.” Lund was well captured by an article that described him as “what you’d get if you took Ron Conway’s Web 2.0 savvy, mixed in the European sensibilities of Index Ventures, added a dollop of Tim Draper’s pioneering wackiness and marinated it all in RedBull.” ^[3]

[edit] Investment style

Lund’s investment model combines angel and venture capital with incubator support, providing early stage businesses with the resources and know-how they need to catapult them to a head start in their industry. He believes that startups “need help from smart people – not takeovers from smart asses.” To Lund, being an investor is all about adding value. He doesn’t over-think and he doesn’t allow himself to get bogged down by institutional processes. He just does. Quickly. He falls in love with companies, and does what it takes to help them grow.

Tenacious, instinctive and viciously self-promoting, one of Morten’s secrets to success lies in his networking activity that has ranged from honing the raw brilliance of young programmers to masterminding a sit-down with former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He is not afraid to take risks and dedicates funds for high-risk early stage investments. He is known for acting on the spur of the moment, focusing on people, networks and being in the right place at the right time - hence the title of his blog, ‘Its all about Luck’.

[edit] Recent ventures

Recent ventures include co-founding Denmark’s now largest daily newspaper, Nyhedsavisen, a free newspaper, with the goal of transforming the nature of printed press by merging the offline distribution with an attractive online presence.^[4] He has also kick-started 40 or more companies under his boutique firm LundKenner^[5] and ignited international communications agency Hello Group, which he founded in 2006. The company now employs 65 people in downtown Copenhagen, making it the fastest growing advertising and media agency in Scandinavia. On top of all that, Lund has started three funds, encompassing Chinese property, Indian technology ventures and a private equity vehicle for Middle Eastern green technology.

[edit] Recent exits

VoIP giant Skype Anti-virus consumer brand Bullguard, Web agency NeoIdeo, sold to Leo Burnett Chinese browser Maxthon, which boasts 100 million downloads to date^[6], Orolix the fastest growing online company in Brazil, Commission free stock trading platform Zecco.com, which gained 75,000 clients in its first 12 months PokerOffice, the world leader in poker training. ^[7] Within his WILD investment portfolio, he is currently involved with WaterStillar, a company focused on developing new water purification techniques; IJoule, a startup working to fight obesity and Aresa, a company that uses genetically modified plants to detect landmines.

It the heart of Morten Lund there’s something that drives him to go big. To Lund, big money means big power. It means Carl Icahn-style clout and activism. Something makes people listen to Lund. He has the clout, vision and disruptive ideas to fascinate and inspire. He will influence how we live, communicate, work and play tomorrow.

Lund is known for his signature "psycho-aggressive" investment style^[8]